Suspicious and Fuming but I doubt there is anything I can do

swingaloo

We have 2 Post Offices in our town. One has been closed for 6 weeks due to the person being very poorly. The other is a place everyone complains about regularly on social media. The staff are incredibly rude staff and there are numerous issues which make the town Facebook page every week. There have been lots of complaints made to Post Office Counters about them.

I went in on the 21st May with 6 pre paid Ebay items. There was an elderly lady in front of me trying to post what was a large letter. They told her she had the wrong stamp on so she asked them to correct it whereby they tried to charge her over £8. She was very flustered and getting upset about it being so expensive so I intervened to say it should not cost her that amount. The result was that I was told to mind my own business and that they knew what they were doing. They told her it would be delivered by 1pm next day but she had already said it did not need to be signed for and was not urgent. 

As I was next in the queue I passed my parcels under the glass to the person who had just told me off, 5 went under the glass, one was too big and I passed that through a door at the end of the counter to a different person. I got a proof of posting and tracking numbers for them all. 
The large one arrived the following day, the other 5 are not even showing on the RM tracking system.
Ive since sent 2 more on the 27th and one of those has been delivered today.

Im not convinced that the person in the Post Office has not held back the 5 parcels I passed to her. It just seems odd that all 5 are 'lost' yet the one she didnt handle arrived the following day.

Ive messaged my buyers, 2 of whom have messaged me asking where there items are and I have sent them a copy of the POP showing clearly the date they were posted.
I can see me having 5 INR's opened against me soon.

in_my_wellies

My local PO has become busier due to the closure of one nearby 
Last Friday I overheard the assistant saying to the RM van driver that he should be driving the larger size van as the smaller van size was no longer suitable. She said two bags and three large boxes had been sitting there for 4 days! 

soolin

I have always tried to be supportive of the PO, feeling guilty sometimes by not doing more of my business through them, but I am having so many issues I dread using them.

I do get quite a lot of LL items and my OH tends to take them to the main mail centre very early a couple of times a week however I do still need go to the PO once or twice a week, . Sometimes the queue is so long that I just leave my items and don’t wait for a POP, sometimes if I only have a couple of LLs I just use a standard post box. I recently had the misfortune to have a couple of higher cost items and wanted POP , I got in the queue and there were 3 counters open (this is a main Crown PO). A courier came in. Collect parcels, Evri possibility, so one assistant closed and went and helped him, standing chatting afterwards, a second assistant then closed so he could go and join the conversation. Then some family members of the last assistant came in, apologised briefly to the queue for jumping in as they just wanted to say hello, and stood and talked to her for 12 minutes (I timed it ). So for 12  minutes there was no one serving at all and the queue got longer and longer. 

I compare that to my Evri place where all my parcels now go, a small shop with a dedicated Evri area for those printing their own labels and 2 counters for usual shop stuff and Evri  parcels with pre printed labels. I rarely wait more than 2 minutes in there to be served. 

strawb_shortcake

I've had issues with LL so probably not personal, some have taken a week, others take a 3/4 days to register then delivered the following day.
My local PO is brilliant, open over 12 hours a day 7 days a week rarely a queue. 

swingaloo

Well, update. 2 of my buyers have been refunded by Ebay. The other 3 are still not showing any tracking.

The annoying thing is that it cant be because the vans are full because I now have 4 items which were taken to the same Post Office by my son and these all show delivered. One was sent on the 27th and 2 sent on the 28th.  So why my deliveries from the 21st have gone nowhere is beyond me. They are all going to different parts of the UK.

soolin

swingaloo said:

Well, update. 2 of my buyers have been refunded by Ebay. The other 3 are still not showing any tracking.

The annoying thing is that it cant be because the vans are full because I now have 4 items which were taken to the same Post Office by my son and these all show delivered. One was sent on the 27th and 2 sent on the 28th.  So why my deliveries from the 21st have gone nowhere is beyond me. They are all going to different parts of the UK.

I would suggest making a formal complaint with Post office counters- although of course it might make things difficult for you in future if you have to continue using that PO.

As an update to my own issues, I had a trolley load of items today and joked with the man in the Evri shop that I wished he did RM, Inpost and Yodel as well as the shop was more efficient than the others. He apologised that he couldn't help with Inpost or Yodel but told me he was set up for RM parcels with either a QR code or a pre printed label, I showed him all my post, and he took the lot and issued me with proof of postage for the lot. I was in there for less than 5 minutes to do both my Evri and RM items and avoided a potential 20+ minute queue in the Post office, so I'm a very happy camper. The Evri shop is also open 7 days a week and although RM don't collect Sundays or bank holidays, it still means I can drop my items off and get receipts at my convenience.

Hopefully these will all show up as normal on delivery as they would if I'd dropped them at the PO.